Swiss Referendum on Minarets

[LCOTNW]

Been watching a lot of Glenn Beck then have you?

Uh... no.

[pika]

Uh... no.

was a joke, thats his style.. to take totally un-like things and then shoe horn them into a conspiracy theory.. in other words, hes insane..

[LCOTNW]

was a joke, thats his style.. to take totally un-like things and then shoe horn them into a conspiracy theory.. in other words, hes insane..

Ahh... I see. I am not that familiar with his style except for what I get on this board and on Daily show reruns on Hulu.

[Nous]

It is I indeed. I went back to my original name. What tipped you off?

Your distinctive style of writing, and friendly attitude.

[Jaerv]

Here in Bavaria, we have elements of direct democracy since sixty years. No problems yet.

On the contrary: In one referendum in 1999 the constitution was changed and the second chamber of the parliament was abolished. This second chamber was absurd in its composition (members not elected by the people but appointed by the estates…) and was completely powerless anyway. Thus, everybody still thinks that it was a very good idea to put an end to this useless institution, and it would never have happened without direct democracy, because the politicians used this second chamber to provide their buddies with good posts..

[Doran Doran]

can we spend a bit more time meditating on the fact that you're calling these people correct and affiliating them with progress?

You can spend any amount of time meditating whatever you want, of course. But if you are so inclined, you could probably do worse than to ponder the curious notion that is shared by oh-so-many self-professed progressives - certainly not only in Europe, although it seems worse there - that an unthinking adherence to an established set of political opinions that have proven themselves to be contra-factual time and time again determines their whole idea of self worth.

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

Which is why a non-issue like this evokes such intense emotional response.

[Shryke]

:rofl:

Oh, your a hoot. Can we keep him?

I love how minaretlessness is now a "pillar of civilization".

[Mad Monkey]

Shryke, I'm shocked that you would disregard such a sacred institution that has been with us since the glorious pinnacle of our civilization, November 30, 2009. Hast thou forgotten the wonders of that Renaissance date?

[pika]

Ahh... I see. I am not that familiar with his style except for what I get on this board and on Daily show reruns on Hulu.

yeah as the kids say .. I watch his show " For the Lulz " .. also so I know what sort of environment I'm walking into at work the next day.. as everyone I work with seems to take him as the gospel truth.. according to him.. the Copenhagen climate accords will strip the US of its Sovereignty.. and the only thing that can save us.. are the Tea-baggers

[Lord Mord]

DD,

You can spend any amount of time meditating whatever you want, of course. But if you are so inclined, you could probably do worse than to ponder the curious notion that is shared by oh-so-many self-professed progressives - certainly not only in Europe, although it seems worse there - that an unthinking adherence to an established set of political opinions that have proven themselves to be contra-factual time and time again determines their whole idea of self worth.

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

Which is why a non-issue like this evokes such intense emotional response.

I think you've gone a bit off the reservation here. I can make up what I think you're talking about, but I don't see why I should bother. Do you mind spelling out an actual point, using, you know, identifiable objects and ideas? Right now, you really aren't saying ... anything.

[Lord of Oop North]

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

From an architectural stahndpoint, the minaret bears a striking resemblence to a pillar of civilization, certainly moreso than the greco-inspired architecture that many democratic pundits decide to decorate their new capitals with after the revolutions. Personally, whenever I see the glorious Minaret of Barad-Dur looming over me, I am filled with a warm fuzzy feeling of civilness.

[mormont]

You can spend any amount of time meditating whatever you want, of course. But if you are so inclined, you could probably do worse than to ponder the curious notion that is shared by oh-so-many self-professed progressives - certainly not only in Europe, although it seems worse there - that an unthinking adherence to an established set of political opinions that have proven themselves to be contra-factual time and time again determines their whole idea of self worth.

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

Which is why a non-issue like this evokes such intense emotional response.

I see you're taking my advice from earlier. Well done. We can all do with laughing at pompous nonsense now and again, so this post gave us all a chuckle. ;)

[Herr Fick]

The left-wing German newspaper TAZ published an online article by Andreas Zumach about the role of Swiss women in the referendum. The following text is part translation, part summary of the article. Quotation marks signify quotes in the original text, brackets mark my own comments.

Women voted against minarets

Decisive for the majority against minarets in Switzerland was, according to researchers, the approval of left-wing women: They wanted to set an example against an authoritarian culture.

Statistical analysis shows that there was a strong city-country-divide [as noticed by many in this thread] and approval of the ban was strongest in those areas, where fewest of the approximately 380.000 Swiss Muslims live. The Kanton of Appenzell-Innerrhoden [which was mentioned before in this thread as the last Kanton to implement the 1971 federal law on women's suffrage] with more than 71% voted strongest in favour of banning minarets. In all major cities, where 90% Swiss Muslims live, the ban was voted against. These include Genf, Zürich and Winterthur, where in each case one of Switzerland's four minarets was built, the fourth one standing in the village Wangen bei Olten (a picture of which I linked above), where the ban was approved.

At least two Swiss political scientists so far have proposed a theory according to which the approval of many left-wing women, who are affiliated with the Green Party or the Social Democrats and view themselves as feminists, was crucial for the nation-wide majority. Political mentality researcher Michael Hermann (Geographic Institute at the University of Zürich) says: "These women wanted to set an example against a culture which they feel is authoritarian, macho and aggressive." According to his analysis, they link Islam above all to "burka, shariah, 'honour-murders' and other forms of oppression against women." Switzerland has not yet experienced these aspects and Muslims are better integrated here than in any other European nation. But even so many left-wing and feminist women still voted for the ban on minarets, notwithstanding the double-standard of the right-wing populist SVP and EDU parties, which advocate a rather backwards view of women in their political programmes [all this was, of course, known to female voters - the point is that they consciously irgnored the other side's political motifs and used the referendum for their own intentions].

Famous Swiss political scientist and public intellectual Regula Stämpfli [who, by the way, is very cool] also proposes this theory.

One reason for why statistical estimations about the referendum's expected outcome were so far off (predicting about 37% approval), could be the non-anonymous nature of some important polls, which were done by telephone. And while left-wing women indicated a 'no'-vote in polls, they actually voted 'yes' in the plebiscite. Even political scientist and eminent expert on direct democracy Claude Longchamps (SRG SSR idée suisse, University of Bern, St Gallen and others) was flat wrong in his prediction of the vote [this paragraph is my own summary of the relevant facts].

[Ser Reptitious]

Thanks thersites, interesting article!

Talk about these women completely missing their target, though! So they are against "burka, shariah, 'honour-murders' and other forms of oppression against women"? Good for them, but the problem is that the burka, honour-murders and many other forms of oppression against women are cultural! They have nothing to do with Islam! I'm far from an expert on that particular religion, but from my limited knowledge, the Qu'ran simply demands that women 'dress modestly', which seems to be common in just about every religion. I'm also quite certain that the Qu'ran does not sanction honour killings!

As for oppression of women in general, Islam was actually a huge improvement for women's rights in the 7th century. For starters, women could no longer be forced into marriages. Of course that stipulation is widely ignored (particularly in less developed countries such as Afghanistan), but again that's a cultural issue, not a religious one. Islam also placed obligations on husbands to properly provide for their wives (and this stipulation was especially emphasized re polygamy - basically a man was not allowed to take a second wife (or third or fourth) unless he was able to properly support them). This may sound like a given, but it certainly wasn't in the Arabian peninsula at the time that Islam originated. Mohammed himself highly valued intelligent women and married accordingly, and he, iirc, constantly sought their advice and input.

Now, times certainly have changed since the 7th century, and that is also why the issues surrounding the Shariah can get very tricky, since it could use some updating. However, it is not nearly as backward as most people in the West generally seem to think. Much like the Bible it is open to interpretation, and the most extreme examples, such as the Taliban and the Saudis, seem to be getting all the attention. There are Islamic scholars who think that it is entirely possible to create a Shariah that would hold up to modern standards.

The fact is that during Victorian times (and pretty much all times prior to that as well) women were quite significantly oppressed as well and much of that oppression at the time was justified using scripture. And the Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, etc. etc. are to this day both very macho and very religious. So should we therefore ban the construction of all Church towers to send a message? If you follow the reasoning of these women to their rational conclusion, the answer would seem to be "yes"!

[Ser Reptitious]

On a separate note, although I realize that (thankfully) virtually nobody in this thread (aside from one or two posters) condones the outcome of this referendum, I (being both Swiss and by coincidence currently traveling in eastern Turkey, which is very conservative Muslim country) would like to share some observations with you that I made today:

Yes, the people around here are very conservative and very religious. You hardly see a woman that is not wearing the headscarf, and the Call for Prayer is heeded 5 times a day. But the people are also extremely friendly and laid-back. They are very family-oriented, but also very poor. I was on a six hour bus ride today and the villages that we passed were much closer to resembling huts than proper houses. I'm sure that most of them don't even have running water. Yet surprisingly just about all of them do seem to have a satelite dish! People love watching TV and movies around here. It's an obvious escape from their dreary daily struggles. And naturally when they watch movies from around the world they tend to be awed at the images of apparent wealth that they see existing in the West.

If all of that wasn't obvious to me before, it certainly became so while watching a very good Turkish movie that they showed in the bus today on the subject of poverty and migration. Basically the grinding poverty is forcing many young men and women to leave their homes and countries to seek (often menial) jobs abroad in order to not only seek to improve their own fortunes but to keep their extended families back home afloat. I'm sure most of us have had to go through tearful goodbyes before, so we know how emotionally wrenching they can be. But now imagine that you are leaving (say, at around 20 years of age) the only home you've ever known (which happens to be a small isolated village in a conservative Muslim country) and head off into an uncertain future. The whole extended family comes to the train/bus station to say one final tearful goodbye. This scene played in the movie and, as it happened, the very same scene also played itself out before my very eyes at a small village where our bus stopped a bit later. The children were crying, the adults were all hugging the departing person one more time, trying to keep their emotions in check, but the struggle plainly shows on their faces. As the goodbye stretches out, the bus driver impatiently honks the horn to tell them to get on with it. As the bus pulls away, everyone waves one final time, with some of the children running behind for a few paces! It's one thing to see it in a movie, but seeing it in real life definitely had a much stronger impact on me.

I couldn't help but wonder where the departing people will end up and what struggles they will face. No doubt all they want is to improve their own and their families lot in life. They will more than likely end up working menial jobs and face discrimination, all in hopes of one day being able to provide a better life for their own children. Yes, they will take their culture and their religious believes with them. This may mean women wearing headscarves. But they are not interested in imposing their own believes on Europe. They just want to be allowed to keep their own. Certainly, if their believes include things like honour-killings, that will need to be addressed, but the bottom line is that when you look at the Swiss referendum from where I am standing right now, it looks even more senseless and cold-heartedly bigoted. These people have already been brutally ripped out of their environment due to economic circumstances. At least let them keep some symbolic comforts, such as a Minaret for the mosque that they may establish in their new homeland to meet and pray!

[tzanth]

Are there any numbers to back the claim that "left leaning women" voted for the ban? The article says that it was the last canton to vote for women's suffrage that had the highest support for the ban. I highly doubt that canton has a very large demographic of left leaning women. Additionally, I would assume that most left leaning women would tend to be concentrated in urban areas, which the article says voted against the ban.

[TerraPrime]

Are there any numbers to back the claim that "left leaning women" voted for the ban? The article says that it was the last canton to vote for women's suffrage that had the highest support for the ban. I highly doubt that canton has a very large demographic of left leaning women. Additionally, I would assume that most left leaning women would tend to be concentrated in urban areas, which the article says voted against the ban.

FWIW, my impression from reading the translated article is that the surprise comes from the support of left-leaning women, because they typically align themselves with the more liberal stance of multiculturalism. It's not saying that left-leaning women made up the majority of those who supported the ban on minarets, only that their "defection" (so to speak) of their leftist views contributed to the larger-than-expected gap between the support and against votes.

[The Stranger]

You can spend any amount of time meditating whatever you want, of course. But if you are so inclined, you could probably do worse than to ponder the curious notion that is shared by oh-so-many self-professed progressives - certainly not only in Europe, although it seems worse there - that an unthinking adherence to an established set of political opinions that have proven themselves to be contra-factual time and time again determines their whole idea of self worth.

my ideas have proven factually consistent for decades running: kill the elderly, eat the whales, and death to Whitey.

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

we would undoubtedly be more influential if any of us had ever bothered to draft The Project. Unless you're referring to the recent Fox News publication, Protocols of the Elder of Berkeley.

[LCOTNW]

You can spend any amount of time meditating whatever you want, of course. But if you are so inclined, you could probably do worse than to ponder the curious notion that is shared by oh-so-many self-professed progressives - certainly not only in Europe, although it seems worse there - that

an unthinking adherence to an established set of political opinions that have proven themselves to be contra-factual time and time again determines their whole idea of self worth.

Essentially, they adopt political positions not on any particular objective merit, but on the warm and fuzzy feeling it gives them about themselves. Which would be merely interesting from an intellectual curiosity point of view if it weren't so widespread and led to such vehemence in their pursuit of their notions that they are happy to give up every single pillar of civilization when - as it inevitably must when you pursue illusions - it clashes with The Project.

Which is why a non-issue like this evokes such intense emotional response.

I'm lost. Are you talking about Republicans here?

[Wouter]

No. See, this is what you don't get. You can't say "It's not racial discrimination" because it is. It's also cultural discrimination, religious discrimination and probably a few others I'm not thinking of. It's all wrapped up together because the people who espouse this kind of xenophobia don't understand what they hate and fear.

That's quite an arrogant claim to make. You are not Swiss or otherwise European, you don't what people there know and understand and what their experiences are. People in Europe are increasingly getting to know Islam, coming in contact with it. You are pretty much calling those who disagree with you ignorant, stupid and racist. IMO the Swiss are actually pretty smart and knowledgeable.

They are afraid of scary brown people who are Muslim and have Minarets on their buildings and like to stone people and put head-scarves on women and go "AYAYAYAYAYA!" alot. They are afraid of a caricature of a thing that doesn't even exist.

Again, you are not in their shoes and do not know what they are afraid of. They have their reasons and as they are living there, their opinion counts for way more than yours.